Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/27

Rh family for the maintenance of the proper kind of living has been variously estimated at from $2,000 to $2,500 per annum. Plausible budgets in support of such figures have been presented. I showed, however, in a recent paper that the gross income of the American people in 1916 was about 45 billion dollars, and that there was about 23 billion dollars available for division among the 27 million non-agricultural workers, affording an average of $855 per worker. My estimate of the national income in that year has been checked by an independent investigation by an impartial economic body. Confirmation of my estimate as to the amount divisible among the workers follows practically as a matter of course. It will be reported that the national income of the American people is not sufficient to afford to everybody even a decent living. What is to be said about this inexorable fact?

Let me return to the great fallacy. “ All through the war it was pointed out how one result would be a new scale of living for the world,”” meaning a higher scale. This was iterated and reiterated and we still hear its echoes. ‘“‘Man is born free and is everywhere in chains,” the opening words of a celebrated work of Rousseau, was a misconception, inflaming the passions of men, that has misdirected the actions of vast multitudes of men ever since. The notion of a higher scale of living to result from the war was of a similar order. How could there be any such result? If there could be, would it not follow that a great war would be desirable every now and then? A preposterous idea!

There can be only one germ of sanity in this fallacy. Many fallacies are wrapped around some germ of sanity, which becomes lost or obscured in the convolu-